


lessons in regret

by viviolet



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Drinking to Cope, F/F, Gen, Pining, Self-Loathing, Warning: Trent Ikithon, ep 110 spoilers, hmm there seems to be a running theme with how i write 2/3rds of the blumendrei, jester is only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26606344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viviolet/pseuds/viviolet
Summary: astrid didn’t dare let herself play over every interaction she’d had with caleb’s newfound family while sober. she’d just wind up in tears, and what was the point of that?or: astrid is not immune to jester. in more ways than one.
Relationships: Astrid & Eodwulf & Caleb Widogast, Astrid/Jester Lavorre
Comments: 8
Kudos: 78





	lessons in regret

**Author's Note:**

> i am currently no thoughts, head full of evil wizards who deserve a chance at redemption. (and. just maybe. love.)
> 
> title is from “the hand that feeds” by the crane wives

For most of her life, Astrid felt like she’d always been short on time.

She, Bren and Eodwulf had come late to the Soltryce Academy, they had to study twice as much and work four times harder than their peers for their instructors to even notice them. Heavy purple bags under the pale skin beneath her eyes was a look that took her quickly, one she’d never really shaken. Even before the pressures of tutelage had begun to breathe down her neck, Astrid had been eager to grow up, cut the long hair of her childhood and join the adults in work and important talks. She was more than willing to give up what was needed to advance.

(Life was short. Well, maybe not for all folk, but her’s certainly would be. Astrid had not been in the interest of wasting it with things like doubt.)

She had been the first of them to shave her head when their instructor order it. They’d both had to hold her that night while she cried about it, silent tears adding to her own as the locks of their childhood burned in some pile, thrown in with the rest of the day’s garbage. Bren had rubbed the spot on her neck that always made her go boneless, the spot he would later disfigure with his own fire, so she could fall asleep in Eodwulf’s protective arms. Just because she was determined didn’t mean she couldn’t mourn the parts of her that she’d have to lose in the process of their ascension.

Her boys were the only two who ever saw her moments of hesitation. Her outward certainty had allowed her to ascend to the place she was now. A manor on the grounds of the Archmage of Civil Influence, part time instructor at the Soltryce Academy, a weapon of a woman that no mortal with a mind to spare would dare to cross or refuse. A most useful tool for the Dwendalian Empire.

It has cost her much, her place in the world. Astrid still is unsure the moment she carved out the last of her soul and threw it away. She wishes she could remember.

Doubt had taken her for the first time in her life in the days after she met Caleb Widogast. It took a while because Astrid _had_ to be certain of herself, there was no other way she would be able to live. But the man who wore Bren’s body, aged a decade but Astrid would know him for the rest of her life, especially after all that time they’d spent trying to bring him back to them in the asylum, he’d made her question the path she had broken, bled and killed for. Would Ikithon even allow her to replace him when old age finally took him?

She’d reached out to Eodwulf for his opinion on the matter of Bren’s new identity and the way he was speaking. He hadn’t spent nearly as much time with Caleb as she had, but Wulf was the last person left in the world that Astrid knew the way she did. And she knew what hesitation sounded like in his writing, how his letters slanted forward when there was much on his mind.

The three of them had suffered so much, all at one man’s hand, and turned that pain outwards and lashed out on others. She had been told that was right, it was good, but the evidence against that had stared her down in her own home and called her blind.

Outright biting the hand had that feed her such a poisonous lie was starting to sound very appealing.

She knew his traveling companions had been the ones to open him to this new line of thinking. If Caleb had any bit of Bren left in him, then self-forgiveness would be the last thought to occur to him. He traveled with two clerics, both fonts of wisdom and delight if rumors were to be believed. The one who worshiped a God that so few had ever heard of, Jester Lavorre, must be the one that penned that bizarre letter about a dead uncle Astrid was _certain_ she’d never had.

From what she’d been made aware of, Jester Lavorre was a blue tiefling with a personality as forceful as dragon and as bright as a Sunburst spell. Something about unicorns too, or was it hamsters? Any time she heard word of her escapades within the group, Astrid could feel herself grow jealous at the thought of being filled with that much optimism. Once, her displeasure of receiving an otherwise unnoteworthy update on Kryn activities that mentioned a blue woman with horns was so blatant that her assistant had asked her about Astrid’s reaction, and nearly gotten himself immolated on the spot for it.

Ikithon had complained about the tiefling’s cherry voice and her liberal abuse of Sending to Astrid in private, over the drink he had insisted they share last night. He’d had a task in mind for her at the dinner he was to host.

“Eodwulf won’t remember their names if I drilled it into him a hundred times. You’ll just need them twice.” That had been Ikithon’s excuse to summon her alone and was said in front of the man he was offending.

Privately, Astrid objected his sentiment. Their instructor often forgot that Eodwulf had been just as competitive as most of the students at the academy, the ones who had earned their places there and not had it paved with coin. But the argument wouldn’t be worth the time, not when it wouldn’t change anyone’s mind. She had just nodded to her friend and followed their master. A familiar move, one she’d done so many times.

Master Ikithon’s intentions for her at the dinner had been to pick at Bren with him, get under his skin, make him doubt his place within the group. He never said this, of course, just implied it with pauses and significant looks. Astrid had obliged and agreed to help, because what else was she to do?

She’d taken a small delight in watching him fluster and fail and his goal. Even if she was currently terrified of what her consequences would be for the spectacle made of him, it was almost worth it to see what all the fuss about this reckless, impolite and still terribly charming group of adventurers was about. Even if some of their words had been directed to wound her, it had been in protection of one of their own, and Astrid couldn’t truly blame them for that

(And what Caduceus Clay had said about the pain being inconsequential was eating at her.)

Her magic and appearances are dropped now, the nightdress Astrid wears is plain and shapeless. All together unspectacular, a look she knew well from days of needing to blend into crowds to do her instructor’s bidding. Astrid was nursing a bottle of wine by herself on the balcony that lead to her bedroom. The wine was cheap, its red sweetness almost overwhelming and tasting mostly like the hangover it would certainly give her the next morning. But Astrid didn’t dare let herself play over every interaction she’d had with Caleb’s newfound family while sober. She’d just wind up in tears, and what was the point of that?

There would likely be much time for her to ponder until she would be destined to run into the Mighty Nein again, so she doesn’t stop herself from fixating over the idealistic Jester Lavorre. Her traitorous heart colors most of those interactions with regret. She hadn’t meant to flinch at the other woman’s touch when they were walking the grounds of Ambition’s Call. Astrid tosses back another mouthful of wine as she remembers what the tiefling had said to her, about not being like Ikithon and attempting to atone for her behavior at dinner.

“Caleb cares deeply for you.” The lilting voice repeats in her mind.

 _We could care about you too._ Astrid selfishly indulges herself. _I could care about you_.

The mean girl antics Jester Lavorre had been apologizing for reminded Astrid of her early days at Soltryce. She had not come from nothing, neither had Wulf or Bren, they had parents who loved them and neighbors who were proud. But none of them came from money, and that simply would not do in Rexxentrum. It was her fastest lesson, the importance of appearances. It was one of her specialties, had served Astrid too well, if her opinion drawn out by the alcohol was to be taken at face value. Deception, after all, was how she had entered her family home that faithful night with a beautiful wooden box housing a poisoner’s kit and claimed it was a present from the capital that she would share with them after they ate.

It had been so easy to abandon her surname after that night of their final test. They had lost Bren, destroyed their families, what was the last shred of her individuality. Astrid had leapt first, blind and eager to please Ikithon as always. Eodwulf, loyal as anything, had followed her.

As a rule, Astrid did not allow herself to regret much. This was one of her exceptions.

She worried she would come to regret not leaving with them tonight. Perhaps it wasn’t too late, they had really gone to a bar and she could catch them before they left. Astrid knew she was playing with a dangerous fantasy; one she’d never be able to act on as long as her Archmage master lived and she was at his beck and call. But wine was her favorite vice, the one that rubbed down her inhibitions in the kindest ways. Astrid could see herself convincing Wulf to join, them taking new names just like Caleb, seeing the world for what it really was. Stopping in the towns she would never have been sent to, ones that reminded her of Blumenthal, sailing on the open ocean with no direction but the one provided to her by friends. Gods, the idea of having friends was such a novelty Astrid needed a moment to savor it. They could help her and Wulf make their lives something beyond a tool to King Dwendal, they’d as much as offered to tonight. She could grow her hair out long; Jester would probably enjoy braiding it –

That thought surprises Astrid so much she nearly drops her mostly-emptied bottle. Thankfully, she’s not so far gone that she can catch the neck before it slips through her slowed fingers. The owls are always listening, and someone would surely come check on the disturbance if it had occurred. She’s certainly had enough of people tonight, even pleasant blue ones.

Her imagination disagrees with Astrid. She thinks of those blue fingers that had fiddled with the silverware, wondered what their weight would feel like on her shoulder while they reassured her, cupped against her cheek so Astrid would be forced to look into those happy violet eyes. Bright laughter the first thing she hears every morning, kind reassurances the last thing before she goes to sleep.

Astrid hoped she’d get to witness Jester in battle someday, hopefully on the same side as her. She had to be a sight to behold, a cleric who wielded magic as a weapon first and as a medicinal second. Fighting with powers you’ve worked for was Astrid knew well and could respect. And her arms… Well, it had been no secret between her boys what her favorite parts of them were. Steadying herself on the railing, Astrid can almost trick herself into believing that they’re wrapped around her right now, a head full of horns and jewelry nestled into the crook of Astrid’s neck while they both watch the darkness in The Candles. Jester’s insistence that she’s not all bad plays in whispers into the ear on the scarred side of Astrid’s face, and that’s what shatters her illusion.

Astrid had done what she needed to survive, but it has certainly cost her every ounce of goodness she was born with. Not to mention the sheer number of lives she’d destroyed, both with magic and with her words. Her parents. Her boys, even if Wulf was still at her side they had really lost one another after that _awful_ night. The faces of men, women, children, all races that she’d been sent to work against under order of her master. The ones she’d killed in cold blood, ruthless as a shrike trying to keep its belly full. The students, _her_ students that Ikithon had inquired about, the ones she had described to him and approved for special training. How many of the Volstruckers had she directly help create? How many innocent people had she put beneath the earth?

None of them knew what terrors had come from her hands other than her master. Not Bren, not Caleb, not even Eodwulf could know the worst of her. Jester Lavorre, tiefling cleric, doesn’t know the things she had done.

So why is she aching for her, alone and under cover of darkness?

(She knows. She knows why.)

Astrid has to get a grip. She hardly knows Jester. It’s not fair to this woman to hold her as potential salvation when she’d likely grow as revolted as Astrid is with herself if she really saw her. There are very few people left on the face of this plane who even tolerate her company. She tries to tell herself that the Mighty Nein would abandon her, leave her to be found by her master, or worse, the people she’s done so many unspeakable evils to. She’s unlovable after all is said and done. She has to be.

But Astrid has chosen to nurse this hurt with wine, which has done nothing but intensify it. She’s got to let that want settle in her, sooth herself so she’s not so worked up she can’t fall asleep tonight. But that _treacherous_ heart Astrid thought she’d ripped out fights back. Jester offered a new day; one it had never occurred to Astrid to hope for. Maybe she could grow to see Astrid for…

And if that isn’t the most dangerous hope she’d had all night.

Maybe Astrid will take up the wooden box she had Eodwulf hide away and finally end the master who put them through so much. Maybe Jester will send her a message, an offer for dinner or a demand to join the group in Eiselcross that she won’t be able to refuse. Maybe she’ll really seek them out herself. Maybe.

She savors the last of her wine before turning her back on the dark sky. It’s too late to be making such hasty decisions, and the buzz of the booze in her skull is driving her towards the bed covered in elaborate fur blankets. Astrid can wait until morning.

**Author's Note:**

> the blumendrei having long hair as children and being forced to cut it short by trent and growing to see long hair as synonymous with freedom is a very niche headcanon, but it is mine and it both brings me softness and utter devastation. 
> 
> i'm [somecommonbitch](https://somecommonbitch.tumblr.com) over on tumblr


End file.
